


Solace

by PseudoWings



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, also any references to real-life bird behaviour arent accurate, also half of this is just projection, i guess? i mean its not an established relationship for sure, i would research it normally but it's late and im tired, if you read this no you didnt <3, my point ALSO is gyro cant take a fucking break to save his life, my point is being touch starved makes you cry thats all, no beta we get exploded like men, so you're welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28759248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudoWings/pseuds/PseudoWings
Summary: hey fellas is it gay to comfort your coworker while he has a breakdown in your arms?
Relationships: Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera/Gyro Gearloose
Comments: 5
Kudos: 64





	Solace

**Author's Note:**

> (I wrote this between four and six am all at once so if you see spelling mistakes no you dont)

It wasn't a surprise when the small, self-sustaining core he had been working on exploded. Or, well, it shouldn't have been.

In hindsight it was pretty obvious this was going to turn sour. Gyro was used to working up until late at night on new inventions, more often than not he spent hours in the lab after work just to finish in time for a deadline he had forgotten about beforehand. But it had been at least a few days of no sleep at all, and he could feel his hands shaking as he worked.

Distantly he could register Fenton telling him to rest for maybe the tenth time, that it was late and too dangerous to keep on forcing himself to stay awake that long.  
Gyro brushed his coworker off with a wave, not even spending words on debating the fact that it was fine, that he was well-used to sleep-deprivation and that all that worrying was useless.

It wasn't until he felt Fenton's hands forcibly stopping his own that he raised his head in annoyed questioning.

"What now? If you haven't gotten it from the past hour, I'm busy." he said, expecting the duck to let him go in a few seconds.  
"You're going to do more harm than good if you keep on doing this."  
Gyro scoffed, and tried to free his hands from the other's grasp.  
"It's fine. I'd be done already if you didn't keep on-"  
"Gyro."  
Fenton stared straight at him, completely serious.  
"Just take a break, you can go back to work after." as he spoke, he let go of his hands, letting more worry peer into his voice.

Gyro almost automatically went back to working, ignoring the duck's further requests for him to stop. Who was he to say when he had to didn't have to take a break? Up until a month ago, he was his intern! He didn't take these decisions!  
He barely noticed that his vision started going blurry.  
It was a mistake of just losing concentration, but in subjects such as these, it could cost a lot.

The explosion from the core lanched him backwards against the lab's walls, luckily not damaging them too much.  
It was enough damage, however, that it took him a few seconds to try and get up.  
He could feel his back hurt in a way that definitely meant it was going to keep hurting for at least a few days, and maybe he was bleeding somewhat from hitting the corner of a desk in the impact- and he could hear Fenton running over from his desk, helping him up.

"What did I say?" his coworker spoke, more in a worried tone than in an actual lecturing one, making Gyro sit on the horribly uncomfortable lounging chair he had bought for the nights he slept in the lab. It was barely used anyways, as he tended to fall asleep at his desk.

He mumbled something in response. At least the explosion had woken him up.

As he tried to get up though, Fenton gently showed him back on the chair.  
"Oh, no, don't even think about going back to work like this. You might be the greatest genius of Duckburg, but you can't walk off an explosion just like that."  
Gyro tried to protest, without much luck.  
He watched as the other took the first aid kit from under his desk.  
"I don't need medical care, in-"  
Again, he was shut up simply by how resolute Fenton seemed to be about it, and resigned to cross his arms and mumble about how he was perfectly fine.

The duck sighed and put the first aid kit down on the floor next to them, opening it.  
"Come on doctor Gearloose, how many times have you helped me with Gizmoduck-related injuries? I'm returning the favour."  
"That's a completely different situation, if you get maimed by whatever blasted villain you fight it's going to be blamed on the suit, and on me by association."  
Fenton raised an eyebrow.  
"And if you can't use the suit, the entire city is in danger, even if your heroic escapades are mostly unsuccessful, while if I get 'hurt'" he made air quotes with his hands "it's not a problem."

Something about that explanation made it sound like an excuse even to Gyro himself, as if he would actually want to help the idiot in front of him with his injuries- it was purely because of his own reputation. Absolutely.

Fenton rolled his eyes. Someday he was going to get through Gyro's skull that he wasn't somehow invulnerable, despite how much he seemed to be convinced of it.  
"Just let me help you." he said, and for once Gyro nodded, be it begrudgingly.  
"Fine, if it'll get you off my back."

He turned his back to his coworker, who took out oxygenated water and cotton discs, and lifted his shirt to have access to the injuries.

"It's going to sting a bit-" Fenton warned.  
"Do you think I've never disinfected wounds before?" he bit back, still crossing his arms.  
Despite fully knowing it would, in fact, sting, he couldn't help but flinch when the oxygenated water first touched the bruises.  
He stood still, perfectly aware of how- gentle Fenton was being. As if he was taking extra care for not hurting him.

He tried to ignore that realization, and to focus on other things, like all the work he was going to re-make from scratch now that it all quite literally exploded, but something wasn't letting him.

Sitting there, with his coworker's hand ever so nicely cleaning out bruises and wounds, and with the pain of open skin against both the disinfectant and the cold hair felt weirdly guilty.  
Like something he wasn't supposed to be doing, or something so foreign that it registered as dangerous.

It fell like a weight at the bottom of his stomach, a ball of anxiety and thick guilt and, though he wouldn't ever admit it, maybe fear.  
Gyro prided himself on being exclusively self-reliant, on not needing things like the comfort of another person, or their help, or pity. If he ever found himself wanting those things, he'd shove it down with all the other repressed emotions, not giving any of those fantasies more than a passing, hateful glance.

Yet, whatever was happening now, felt like someone forcibly liberated all of those emotions, and he was left frantically trying to get them all back in check.

It was the sheer tenderness, the softness of the other's gestures that took him by surprise more than any other thing could have possibly have.  
Oh, he had been used to rage, and hate, and cold hard stares.  
But clemency? Compassionate, unassuming acts of kindness, done not to obtain anything but out of sheer-

It felt like too much all at once, and at the same time it was so terribly not enough.

He didn't even register the fact that it had been fully enough time for Fenton to be done with helping him, and that the other had sat down on the same lounge-chair, behind him, while he worked.  
He was also still crossing his arms, holding onto them with enough force that it actually started to hurt.

Gyro felt the other ever so gently pass his hand through the feathers on his back, in an almost soothing manner. Somewhere in his head he was aware of what that was -preening, combing- and somewhere he tought he could never let someone, much less his idiotic ex-intern-now-coworker, do that.

Yet he didn’t even try to make a move to stop him. Most he did was inhaling sharply, making Fenton stop in his tracks for a second.  
Just a moment later, his hands were back, softly smoothing over loose and tangled feathers, careful to avoid the bruises and the injured areas. It was that- feeling, of softness, that made it so it felt natural to not oppose it.

Once he had passed over his back at least two, maybe three times, Fenton maybe should have hesitated, but again, it felt like a natural thing to simply keep going. So he slightly adjusted his sitting position on the lounge, and moved his hands over to the slightly softer feathers on Gyro’s chest.

The other leaned slightly backwards before he could even register what he was doing, but his movements were still stiff, not relaxed, as if- and it probably was the case, he was unused to the contact. Fenton waited a moment before he kept going, hands brushing the white feathers, knowing by how they felt that they hadn’t been combed through properly in a long time.  
Something about that realization made him sad.

It wasn’t until some time after -both of them had lost the count of how much it had been since they first sat down on that lounge chair- that Gyro actually relaxed against him, letting himself lean back fully.  
He could feel the prickling just below his eyes starting to form, despite how much he was trying to fight it. But it was late at night, and he was tired, and it was the first time in probably ten-something years that someone was holding him so gently.  
So Gyro breathed in, through a slightly open beak, and felt his shoulders rise in a barely choked sob.

Fenton stopped for a second hearing it, and almost panicked. He moved his hands away, hesitated, then hugged him. That single action probably would have been a terrible idea in any other moment, knowing the other’s typical temper, but at that second it felt like the only thing he could do.  
In all the time he worked in that lab, never once had he heard Gyro cry before. He did look like someone who never cried, like the mere action of feeling things was below him.  
It wasn’t unrealistic to imagine that was the first time he shed a tear in a long time, and for it to be right then and there- something about it was certainly ironic.

Gyro sobbed again, almost gasping for air. It wasn’t pretty silent tears, it was choked breaths and sharp inhales and it was him digging his fingers into his own arms so hard it hurt again- until he felt Fenton’s hands softly taking his glasses off, and setting them down on the floor next to the lounging chair.  
He didn’t stop crying, it just gradually got more silent.

Fenton still held him, hands resting just above his chest, keeping him leaned against himself, and ever so slightly strengthening his grip onto the other, as if to remind him that he was there, until his sobbing stopped, and his breathing slowed to a normal pace.  
The sheer feeling of being cared for that much almost suffocated him, but it was that much more painful letting go of it than anything.

They both sat there, perfectly still safe for their slowing breathing.

And slowly, the tiredness he had felt before dawned on Gyro all at once, along with what the crying took out of him, so much so that he almost fell asleep as soon as he calmed down.  
He still mumbled something, face turned away from Fenton.  
The other gently nudged him, not wanting to ask out loud for him to repeat himself.

“Thanks.” murmured Gyro again. If he wasn’t so tired, maybe he would have had the energy to care about the fact that he could feel his face flushing.  
He was going to probably care in the morning, when he’d wake up still on the lounge chair and still held against Fenton, with his back hurting from the latent explosion injuries.  
“Oh. No problem.”


End file.
